Socio-economic Impact of Brain drain in Sri Lanka

Abstract

People leave their motherland away from family and friends, in search of adventure, better economic prospects and to obtain better professional opportunities and a higher standard of living. International migration provides more benefits not only to the employers but also to their families and their country. Large scale migration of highly educated, skilled people of developing countries to highly rich and developed countries is called Brain-Drain. A relatively larger proportion of skilled Srilankan labours have migrated in the few last years. So that it is evident that Srilanka is mostly affected by this brain drain. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify social economic impact of brain drain in Srilanka. The study is based on the primary data which was collected through questionnaires from 100 migrated skilled labours and secondary data from Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment. The data was analyzed by using SPSS. The survey revealed that, political instability, lack of autonomy academic freedom, lack of career opportunities are the pull factors for the emigration to developed countries. In economic perspective, as a result of fewer productive educational funds, worse health care system, unemployment and inflation, country becomes a poor state. Besides Regional inequalities, strains on families and gender roles are costs of emigration. The Brain-Drain generates the Foreign Direct Investment to the country and increase the global economies. There are both negative and positive impacts of human capital flight.